Conclusion

A Short History of Scotland, by Andrew Lang

Space does not permit an account of the assimilation of Scotland to
England in the years between the Forty-five and our own time: moreover, the
history of this age cannot well be written without a dangerously close approach
to many "burning questions" of our day. The History of the Highlands, from 1752
to the emigrations witnessed by Dr Johnson (1760-1780), and of the later
evictions in the interests of sheep farms and deer forests, has never been
studied as it ought to be in the rich manuscript materials which are easily
accessible. The great literary Renaissance of Scotland, from 1745 to the death
of Sir Walter Scott; the
years of Hume, a pioneer in
philosophy and in history, and of the Rev. Principal Robertson (with him and
Hume, Gibbon professed, very
modestly, that he did not rank); the times of
Adam Smith, of
Burns, and of
Sir Walter; not to speak
of the Rev. John Home, that foremost tragic poet, may be studied in many a
history of literature.
According to Voltaire, Scotland led the world in all studies, from metaphysics
to gardening. We think of Watt, and add engineering.

The brief and inglorious administration of the Earl of Bute at once
gave openings in the public service to Scots of ability, and excited that
English hatred of these northern rivals which glows in Churchill's "Satires,"
while this English jealousy aroused that Scottish hatred of England which is
the one passion that disturbs the placid letters of David Hume.

The later alliance of Pitt with
Henry Dundas made
Dundas far more powerful
than any Secretary for Scotland had been since Lauderdale, and confirmed the
connection of Scotland with the services in India. But, politically, Scotland,
till the Reform Bill, had scarcely a recognisable existence. The electorate was
tiny, and great landholders controlled the votes, whether genuine or created by
legal fiction - "faggot votes." Municipal administration in the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries was terribly corrupt, and reform was demanded,
but the French Revolution, producing associations of Friends of the People, who
were prosecuted and grievously punished in trials for sedition, did not afford
a fortunate moment for peaceful reforms.

But early in the nineteenth century Jeffrey, editor of "The
Edinburgh Review," made it
the organ of Liberalism, and no less potent in England than in Scotland; while
Scott, on the Tory side, led a following of Scottish penmen across the Border
in the service of "The Quarterly Review." With "Blackwood's Magazine" and
Wilson, Hogg, and Lockhart; with Jeffrey and "The
Edinburgh," the Scottish
metropolis almost rivalled London as the literary capital.

About 1818 Lockhart recognised the superiority of the Whig wits in
literature; but against them
all Scott is a more than
sufficient set-off. The years of stress between Waterloo (1815) and the Reform
Bill (1832) made Radicalism (fostered by economic causes, the enormous
commercial and industrial growth, and the unequal distribution of its rewards)
perhaps even more pronounced north than south of the Tweed. In 1820 "the
Radical war" led to actual encounters between the yeomanry and the people. The
ruffianism of the Tory paper "The Beacon" caused one fatal duel, and was within
an inch of leading to another, in which a person of the very highest
consequence would have "gone on the sod." For the Reform Bill the mass of
Scottish opinion, so long not really represented at all, was as eager as for
the Covenant. So triumphant was the first Whig or Radical majority under the
new system, that Jeffrey, the Whig pontiff, perceived that the real struggle
was to be "between property and no property," between Capital and Socialism.
This circumstance had always been perfectly clear to
Scott and the Tories.

The watchword of the eighteenth century in
literature,
religion, and politics had
been "no enthusiasm." But throughout the century, since 1740, "enthusiasm,"
"the return to nature," had gradually conquered till the rise of the Romantic
school with Coleridge and Scott. In
religion the enthusiastic
movement of the Wesleys had altered the face of the Church in England, while in
Scotland the "Moderates" had lost position, and "zeal" or enthusiasm pervaded
the Kirk. The question of lay patronage of livings had passed through many
phases since Knox wrote, "It
pertaineth to the people, and to every several congregation, to elect their
minister." In 1833, immediately after the passing of the Reform Bill, the
return to the primitive Knoxian rule was advocated by the "Evangelical" or
"High Flying" opponents of the Moderates. Dr Chalmers, a most eloquent person,
whom Scott regarded as
truly a man of genius, was the leader of the movement. The Veto Act, by which
the votes of a majority of heads of families were to be fatal to the claims of
a patron's presentee, had been passed by the General Assembly; it was contrary
to Queen Anne's Patronage
Act of 1711, - a measure carried, contrary to Harley's policy, by a coalition
of English Churchmen and Scottish Jacobite members of Parliament. The
rejection, under the Veto Act, of a presentee by the church of
Auchterarder, was
declared illegal by the Court of Session and the judges in the House of Lords
(May 1839); the Strathbogie imbroglio, "with two Presbyteries, one taking its
orders from the Court of Session, the other from the General Assembly"
(1837-1841), brought the Assembly into direct conflict with the law of the
land. Dr Chalmers would not allow the spiritual claims of the Kirk to be
suppressed by the State. "King Christ's Crown Honours" were once more in
question. On May 18, 1843, the followers of the principles of
Knox and Andrew Melville
marched out of the Assembly into Tanfield Hall, and made Dr Chalmers Moderator,
and themselves "The Free Church of Scotland." In 1847 the hitherto separated
synods of various dissenting bodies came together as United Presbyterians, and
in 1902 they united with the Free Church as "the United Free Church," while a
small minority, mainly Highland, of the former Free Church, now retains that
title, and apparently represents Knoxian ideals. Thus the Knoxian ideals have
modified, even to this day, the ecclesiastical life of Scotland, while the
Church of James I, never
by persecution extinguished (nec tamen
consumebatur), has continued to exist and develop, perhaps more in
consequence of love of the Liturgy than from any other cause.

Meanwhile, and not least in the United Free Church, extreme
tenacity of dogma has yielded place to very advanced Biblical criticism; and
Knox, could he revisit Scotland
with all his old opinions, might not be wholly satisfied by the changes wrought
in the course of more than three centuries. The Scottish universities,
discouraged and almost destitute of pious benefactors since the end of the
sixteenth century, have profited by the increase of wealth and a comparatively
recent outburst of generosity. They always provided the cheapest, and now they
provide the cheapest and most efficient education that is offered by any homes
of learning of medieval foundation.